By Dominick Mastrangelo - 12/29/20 07:38 AM EST
A judge in Georgia ruled on Monday that two of the state s counties cannot invalidate voting registrations based on unverified change of address data.
“Defendants are enjoined from removing any challenged voters in Ben Hill and Muscogee Counties from the registration lists on the basis of National Change of Address data,” U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner wrote in an order, according to Reuters.
Abrams Gardner is the sister of former Democratic candidate for governor and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams.
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The two counties had sought to purge thousands of voters from the rolls based on what local election officials called unreliable change of address data. The vast majority of them included 4,000 in Muscogee County, which President-elect Joe Biden
By Niv Elis - 12/29/20 09:54 AM EST
Unemployment benefits included in a new COVID-19 relief package will not lapse this week, as anticipated, despite President Trump As states are implementing these new provisions as quickly as possible, the Department does not anticipate that eligible claimants will miss a week of benefits due to the timing of the law’s enactment, a department spokesman told The Hill.
Two key emergency unemployment programs, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), expired on Saturday, a day before Trump signed a $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill into law.
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Trump delayed signing the bill, which passed in Congress on Dec. 21, complaining that $600 stimulus checks were not large enough.
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Ret. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman says the military hasn t properly supported him following his testimony in Pres. Trump s impeachment trial. No, they haven t… At no point did any senior leader, civilian or military… indicate that I was still in good standing in the military. pic.twitter.com/ghRRC3dNCK OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) December 29, 2020
Vindman announced his retirement from the military in July, saying through an attorney that Trump had engaged in a “campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation against him.
The Associated Press reported Vindman’s name was on a promotion list sent to Esper earlier this year, but his promotion was delayed due to an investigation of Vindman the White House reportedly wanted.
The remarks, which Trump made in a series of tweets while on vacation in Palm Beach, Fla., underscored the growing divide between Trump and his own party on multiple fronts.
Republicans fear that Trump’s divisive comments on the presidential election in particular could threaten GOP chances of retaining the Senate majority, which hangs in the balance of the Senate runoffs in Georgia next week.
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Trump tweeted Tuesday morning that Republican leaders were “weak and tired” for allowing a veto override of the defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act. Trump vetoed the legislation last week because it does not include a repeal of Section 230, a tech company liability shield, and includes a provision mandating the renaming of Confederate-named military bases.
The House voted to reapprove the conference report on this must-pass legislation. Today the Senate will set up a final vote for tomorrow, Wednesday, with this chamber to follow suit, McConnell said from the Senate floor on Tuesday. For the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces, failure is simply not an option. So when it s our time in Congress to have their backs, failure is not an option either. I would urge my Republican colleagues to support this legislation one more time when we vote tomorrow, McConnell added.
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But whether the Senate holds a veto override vote on Wednesday is in limbo. McConnell tried to set up the vote earlier but that effort was blocked by Democrats, who are trying to get a separate stand-alone vote to increase the amount of recently passed stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000.